Hello,
Readers of my blog know that I attended the Erykah Badu concert last night. It was at the Depot in Salt Lake City. I would like to thank my brother for taking me, it was an excellent concert. I don't agree with all of Badu's politics but she is an excellent performer. According to Rhapsody Badu means " to manifest truth and light" in Arabic. She did both of those things last night, she also brought the funk. I would also just like to stress in advance, other than a five hour listening tour of her music Monday, I have never been exposed to Badu's music before. So there are going to be mistakes and inaccuracies in this blog, I apologize in advance for those.
The show was suppose to start at 8:00. She didn't have an opening act. Unfortunately Badu gave into the rock star impulse and the show started much later. About 8:40 the lights started turning off. They played some mash-ups including someone on a recording rapping over AC/DC's "Back In Black". Then the band came on the stage and about 9:05 the back up singers came on the stage. The excellent band gave us some blistering funk for about 10-15 minutes. Finally Erykah Badu took the stage about 9:15 and the funk was pretty instataneous.
Badu took the stage in comfortable clothes, a funky hat and with a funky look on her face. I am sure if that look was suppose to be funny or defiant or a mixture of both. I am not sure what the name of the first song she sang was. But the second song she sang was "Amerykahn Promise". This song was a funky start to this excellent concert.(My notes are not real great, so I apologize.) The first song I know the title of she sang is "Me" which is a funky slow jam. Badu then sang a song about "hold on my people" followed by a drum solo. She next sang a song titled "Twinkle" in which she sings about "freckles" and herself. We then had a bit of a bluesy guitar solo and I was hoping she would break out some Muddy Waters like blues at that point. However she didn't and that was okay. She then sang a song about "on and on". Then Erykah Badu did a little drum pad/ synthesizer solo.
She mostly skipped her slow stuff and stayed funky and continued with that on "On and On Like A Rolling Stone" (probably not the actual title, but my notes are not exactly clear.) Badu and her funky band kept up the momentum on "I Want You". They then played a recorded blues track, that was sort of a break for Badu and her band. After that brief break, she sang "Don't Worry" and a song that states that we should, "stand like a soldier". (This is not to be confused with her "Soldier" song, which she sang later.) Unfortunately this song rambled on too long. She then followed that up with "Stay On" and a slow, bluesy "Troubled Waters".
Another break for her band and Badu gave her "Vortex" speech, talking about a vortex located in Salt Lake City and the people of this city are beautiful. Unfortunately then came one of the lowlights of the concert. She sang "Mama's Gun" which unfortunately was boring and too long. She then talked about occupation and resistance, including an experience about both that was peacefully resolved in Mexico. After which she shouted for Obama "to hold on". She also talked about how amazing his making such a successful run for the President is. She continued with a new song, "Soldier". She had audience participation with "only if you agree sing 'misery'",of course we complied. She then asked the individual members of her band, "Are You somebody?". All of them replied in the affirmative, including my favorite response, "Damn right!"
She turned it over to the band for a few minutes and let the band rock it out, including some excellent work on the turntable. She followed that with a song combining "vegetables", "I'm lonely" and "a fine line between love and hate". She then closed out her show with "Love Can Make Me Better" where she and some of her band went out into the audience. Badu was done about 11:30 and her band played a little bit more. There was another mash-up based off the Police classic "Roxanne".
Don't let this poorly written review be misleading, her concert was much better than this review. Somewhere in all this she sang the very funky, "Boogie Nights/ All Night" and the excellent "Other Side of The Night". Again she was in good voice and so were here 4 backup singers. Also her band is excellent, they brought the funk all night. Also she likes to tell her band to "stop" and "hold on" while she does a little solo thing. I have never seen an artist do that so much.
I only had three minor quibbles: 1) how late she started, 2) sometimes the concert lost a bit of the momentum with some slower songs and 3) she didn't sing my favorite song of hers "Tyrone". However again those are all minor quibbles. I would give this concert a ranking of 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. For those living in her upcoming tour stops of Phoenix and New Mexico to go check her out.
The next concert that I am going to is Celine Dion in November, I have a feeling that won't be quite as funky. Have a good day, themusicaddict
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